Prizefight: Samsung Galaxy S4 vs. HTC One

Prizefight: Samsung Galaxy S4 vs. HTC One

7:35 /
May 7, 2013

It's two Android titans duking it out for smartphone supremacy in the Prizefight ring. It's the Samsung Galaxy S4 versus the HTC One. Let's get it on!

What's up Prizefight fans?
I'm Brian Tong and this is the Prizefight you've been waiting for between two of the top Android titans.
It's a Prizefight punch out between the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One.
Our judges for this fight, our Senior Editor Brian "Boom-Boom" Bennett, Senior Editor Jessica "The People's" Dolcourt and myself "Ring-a-ling-a-ding" Tong.
Now, we'll take all three judges' scores and average them out to the nearest 10th each round.
The final Prizefight score will be an average of all round within the same system.
Let's get it started, round one is design.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 brings its biggest screen yet with a 5-inch HD Super AMOLED display with 441 pixels per inch, but its screen is dimmer compared to others.
Some people still complain about its plastic style body, which really isn't that big of a deal, but it keeps
a very similar design to the S3 and still can't compete with the build of other phones.
Now, the HTC One is sex on a phone with its beautiful contoured aluminum body, polished metal edges and it's the best built Android phone you've ever seen.
It brings a slightly smaller 4.7-inch screen but it has a higher 468 pixels per inch density, that's brighter and less reflective.
The HTC One's design still can't be beaten and it takes this round with a perfect 5 and the S4 gets
a 4. Next round is user interface and control.
The Galaxy S4 brings its snappy Touchwiz interface running on top of Android 4.2.2.
It really looks a lot like previous versions except there's even more UI bells and whistles tucked in here that you'll have to dig for deep into the settings.
Now, if you don't know what you can do, just pull down the notification's bar and you'll see everything and I mean everything.
Now, we don't think the interface is bad and the UI
is still just as customizable but it's not as clean anymore because there's a lot going on here.
HTC's Next Gen Sense UI is just as fast and snappy, running on top of Android 4.1.2.
It's super clean and easy to operate but time will tell how quickly it will receive future updates.
Their new BlinkFeed panel shows you all your social media updates and it's a sweet flipboard like addition but if you don't like it, you can't really get rid of it.
Now, you still get all of Android's customizations for creating
folders and widgets, but between the two phones, this is the cleaner experience.
The HTC One gets a 4.7 and the Galaxy S4 gets a 4. So, after averaging two rounds, the HTC One leads big 4.94.
Next round is features.
Samsung's Galaxy S4 is truly the king of features with its powerful 1.9 GHz core quad processor.
So, let's just tell you some of the unique things it can do even if you won't use them all.
It has a replaceable battery and memory expansion.
Two things the HTC One doesn't have.
It also takes the page from the Note and brings multi window support to run 2 apps at the same time.
It has a Air View for previewing content like glowing up texts on a website by floating your finger on top of it.
If you wanna be GEDAI, scroll through picture with the wave of a hand with its Air Gesture support.
Eat your heart out, Yoda.
Now, watch a video and then turn away and the
video clip will stop until your eyes return to the screen.
It also has an interface called S Voice Drive to keep your eyes on the road and it can even be used as a fitness device to track your steps.
Oh, yeah, it also has the Watch On app to act as your TV remote.
And that's still not everything.
The HTC One brings up blazing quad-core 1.7 GHz processor and its power button is also an IR blaster that can be used as a TV remote.
Now, the HTC One's biggest distinguishing
feature is its BoomSound dual frontal stereo speakers that sound better than anything I've heard on a phone so far and it's that good.
Now, you can add on all the Android Jellybean features like Google Maps for turn-by-turn and Speech to Text for search and directions, NFC for sending content from one phone to the other and Google Now for happenings around you.
But both phones can do this.
The Galaxy S4 really can do almost everything and it gets a perfect 5 and the HTC One gets
a 4. Next round is web browsing multi media.
Both phones have their standard browsers and Chrome, so you're pretty much getting the same web quality experience.
The Galaxy S4's larger screen is nice but I take HTC's dual BoomSound speakers over a slightly bigger screen with excellent video playback on both.
Now, as usual, this tends to come down to the camera and it's really Samsung's 13-megapixel camera, the cornucopia of shooting modes including the drama mode for action
shots or beauty mode which I've been advised to use and the dual shot mode that uses both the rear and front facing cameras and I guess that can be fun and its editing features are just as extensive.
HTC has its own special camera trick with its 4-megapixel ultra pixel that does the best job of handling low light situations without a flash.
The ZOE feature can remove objects from photos, take action shots and has its own batch of cool filters as well.
Now, there's a
lot of bells and whistles and it comes down to image quality.
I personally prefer the HTC One overall, but really, majority rules here and the Galaxy S4 edges out the HTC One 5 to 4.3.
So, after averaging 4 rounds, the S4 has a slight lead and this decision comes down to the final round, it's performance.
-Both phones are snappy performers and their processor performance is basically the same using the phone.
We tested graphics performance for gaming and the S4 edged out
the HTC One but the results were so close, it was pretty much negligible.
Now, the big fight here is that he S4 is 200 MHz boost, didn't yield any clear performance benefits.
Battery life will be different for everyone but the HTC One has a power saver mode to save you more juice.
Now, in our battery video drain test, both phones were closed to 10 hours of juice and that's pretty much a push.
Call quality will vary on your carrier and location but from our testing, both phones were solid.
These are two great
performances smartphones but not the best when it comes to battery life and we're handing out 4.7 points to each side.
So, let's average out all five rounds and then the Prizefight where HTC jumped out early, Samsung stormed back with 2 perfect rounds but this Prizefight ends up in a tie at 4.5 points a piece.
Now, you know, we can't end it like that and we couldn't even end it with hundreds of a point.
So, we had to take it to thousands of a point and the Samsung Galaxy
S4 takes this Prizefight 4.532 to 4.53 and is your Prizefight winner.
You guys, you can't deny that these are two amazing phones and if I had to personally make my own pick, it would be the HTC One.
But really, the final decision is always up to you.
I'm Brian Tong, thanks for watching.
I will catch you guys next time for another Prizefight.